Was Dr Azahari Husin, purportedly Asia's top terror suspect dubbed the 'Demolition Man', really killed in an explosion in Indonesia to avoid capture?

His family in Kuala Lumpur certainly doesn't think so, says the Malay Mail frontpage report today, until there is conclusive evidence - which only a DNA test can show.

Foreign wires and local media ran breaking news late Wednesday that Azahari and two others had purportedly blown themselves up after a gun battle with the police starting 3pm at an alleged hideout in Java.

The Jakarta Post online quoted national police chief General Sutanto as saying that a new recruit from East Java arrested in the same house identified as Suwandi had confirmed Azahari's death.

Committed suicide

In the same report, another witness ANteve station chief news editor Karni Illyas claimed that Azahari, 47, committed suicide and that two anti-terror personnel recognised his face although his body were blown to bits.

A follow-up report on Jakarta Post online had Sutanto repeating the same but said nothing about forensic or DNA tests for conclusive identification of the bodies.

Meanwhile, a human rights activist Badaruddin Ismail was quoted by AP in Kuala Lumpur as saying that Azahari's wife (only known as Noraini) and two young children have accepted his death, pending DNA confirmation, and wanted his remains to be flown home for burial.

According to the same report, Indonesian police said fingerprinting has confirmed that the former Universiti Teknologi Malaysia lecturer had died in the blast.

Azahari, an Australian-trained engineer who obtained his doctorate in Britain and allegedly Jemaah Islamiyah's (JI) chief bomb-maker, is suspected to have masterminded the bombings that killed 202 people in Bali in 2002 and three other deadly attacks in Indonesia.

JI is purportedly the regional arm of the al Qaeda terror network led by global terror suspect Osama bin Laden.

Another Malaysian alleged partner-in-terror Noordin Mohamed Top reportedly evaded arrest.

A big success

TEMPO Interactive reported that Azahari, a former Universiti Teknologi Malaysia lecturer, was "assumed to have been killed during a police attack on a villa in Jalan Flamboyan, Malang".

Despite the absence of positive identification of the three dead men, the Jakarta Post online reported Australia welcoming "the apparent death of Azahari as a crucial victory in the battle against regional terror group Jemaah Islamayah".

Australian Federal Police Commissioner Mick Keelty was quoted in the report by Reuters as saying that if Azahari's death is confirmed, it would leave "a big dent in the operations of the radical terrorist groups in Indonesia".

In Malaysia, national news agency Bernama quoted Deputy Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak praising Indonesian authorities in their efforts to eliminate the terrorist threat in the country, if Azahari is confirmed dead.

Today, local and foreign media continued to report different facts and figures of those killed by the blast in Java, including one saying that police had shot dead the men prior to the explosions.